10 Miss USA Beauty Queens Who've Competed on "Survivor"

Because pageant contestants get cast on the show all the time. Go figure.

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Angelia Layton competes in tonight's Miss USA as Miss Utah (she also held the title of Miss Utah Teen USA in 2010, and placed as the third runner-up in Miss Teen USA that year). Alongside her experience in the glitzy world of pageants, Layton's experienced in a rather different form of competition also — as a contestant on the 25th season of CBS reality juggernaut, Survivor.

(Layton is pictured above in her pregame promotional photo.) She didn't make it far on the show, after being placed on a particularly lackluster tribe at the start of the game, but did get a delightful Tribal Council moment where she asked Survivor host Jeff Probst for some cookies.

And she's in good, pageant company. A surprising (or perhaps unsurprising, given reality TV casting directors' primal need for attractive people) number of other Survivor contestants have also competed in Miss USA and/or Miss Teen USA. They may not be able to make fire on a barren beach somewhere, but they do tend to look good in their swimsuits on said beach. They're all listed here, by their relative success on their season of the reality show:

Boatwright held the title of Miss Kansas Teen USA in 1991 and Miss Kansas USA in 1996. She placed second runner-up in Miss Teen USA, and first runner-up in Miss USA. Sure, the title of "Sole Survivor" didn't come with a crown or a sash, but it did come with $1 million.

2. Amanda Kimmel, third place on Survivor: China, second place in Survivor: Micronesia, and ninth place in Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains.

Kimmel held the title of Miss Montana USA in 2005, but did not place in the top 15 in Miss USA. She also competed in Miss Earth that year, and placed in the top eight.

Note: Candice Stewart, who competed as Miss Louisiana alongside Kimmel at the 2005 Miss USA finals, appeared on another CBS reality show: Big Brother 15. Pageant contestants Kaitlyn Christopher, Kristen Johnson, and Melissa Witek (of Indiana, Kentucky, and Florida, respectively) teamed up on NBC's short-lived Treasure Hunters. And a bunch of the other state queens competed on a special pageant edition of Fear Factor.

Underwood held the title of Miss Maine USA in 2009. She did not place in the top fifteen; she was also robbed on her season of Survivor as arguably one of the only players with even a semblance of strategic gameplay to make the merge.

Note: Stephanie Smith, who competed as Miss South Carolina alongside Underwood at the 2009 Miss USA finals, appeared on the 17th series of The Amazing Race with her fiancé (now husband) Chad. They placed fifth.

Survivor: Cagayan split its 18 players into tribes by their brains, brawn, or beauty. Obviously the beauty tribe needed a pageant queen — Bland held the title of Miss Kentucky Teen USA in 2009. She made the top 15 in the Miss Teen USA pageant.

Note: Wikipedia tells me that Vanessa Johnston, who competed as Miss Minnesota alongside Bland at the 2009 Miss Teen USA pageant, appeared in the casting episode of America's Next Top Model's 15th cycle (when the show went "high fashion" for a little while). Johnston did not meet Tyra's approval, however, and didn't make the cast.

Tornell held the title of Miss Nevada USA in 1989. She didn't make the top 10. Also, she quit on her season of Survivor and that's terrible. Some of us *ahem* would kill for a shot on the show and/or to wear pageant gowns.

Yes, Hanson competed in the same season of Survivor as Angelia Layton, but they started the game in different tribes (neither made the merge, so there you go). She held the title of Miss Delaware USA in 2011.

Note: Alyssa Campanella, who won Miss USA in 2011, competed on a Food Network show, Rachael vs. Guy: Celebrity Cook Off. And one other of Hanson's Miss USA pageant pals also appeared on Survivor (see No. 9 below).

Giles held the title of Miss Texas Teen USA in 1999 and placed seventh at Miss Teen USA. She's also a rocket scientist (or so her Survivor bio claimed; FWIW the show has seen three rocket scientists play the game, and they've all been useless).

Driskill held the title of Miss Missouri USA in 2011 (her very first pageant, no less). She placed in the top 16 in Miss USA, but didn't even make it that far on her season of Survivor, despite only being up against 19 other people, instead of 50.

And one Miss America contestant: Elyse Umemoto, 15th place (out of 18 players) on Survivor: South Pacific.

These 11 queens are just the ones to have landed major pageant titles. Many more Survivor contestants still have competed to state level, but not quite managed to land their state's tiara; one, Rita Verreos, of Survivor: Fiji, once even competed in Miss Venezuela.

Eleven queens (from both the Miss USA and Miss America pageants) have also competed on The Amazing Race. Those include Stephanie Smith (mentioned above) as well as Ericka Dunlap, 2004's Miss America, and Caite Upton, who gained notoriety after flubbing her geography question in the Q&A round of 2007's Miss Teen USA. Obviously, the prospect of making a girl with no understanding of maps whatsoever race around the world is reality TV gold.

Note: This post focuses primarily on long-standing reality competition series. But in all seriousness, pick a major reality TV show, from ANTM to The Bachelor to even VH1's ... of Love franchise, and you won't have to dig deeply into its contestants' backgrounds before you're finding pageant gowns and copious Vaseline. So before you spend months prepping your audition tape to be just perfect, consider finding yourself a sash and crown instead.